cat's cradle
by eudaemonics
Summary: Shad's mother gave him a cat. He wasn't exactly keen on taking care of her, but he finds it's not all that bad. Modern AU...with cats.
**a modern au. centering around cat ownership. who woulda thought.**

 **but uh. oh boy this has been in my drafts for a couple months. i somehow let my depression get so bad again that i didn't feel like writing anything. B)**

 **but then twilight princess hd came out and apparently that was enough to lift me up from my slump and finish this. go figure.**

 **...i haven't written a full length fic in a while. idk when/if i'll get to writing chapter 2. don't hold your breath, you will probably die. trying to write a multichapter fic might be a mistake for me.**

* * *

It had only been a couple days since he left the hospital that he received a call about the paperwork being prepared.

Not that Shad was any bit surprised. He knew his father had left him quite a few things and he was told that they wanted to get legal matters out of the way as soon as possible, even if just thinking about it hurt. The only advice his mother gave him was _endure._

They gave him property papers, a check for the money that was left to him, and the heaps of research his father had conducted on different Hylian affairs.

When he went to a psychiatrist about a couple weeks after the funeral, she gave him a prescription for antidepressants and numbers for grief counselors.

His mother gave him a cat.

"Isn't she just adorable?" she cooed as she cradled the lump of fur in her arms as if it were an infant.

 _Adorable_ wasn't the first word that popped into Shad's head when he looked at the animal. One of it's ears were torn at the side, it's fur was an off-white from dirt and _way_ too fluffy for the obviously small body beneath the thick coats. Just thinking about the horror it would bring during shedding season gave Shad goosebumps.

"Where on earth did you find...her?" he asked, voice dripping with disbelief, as he hesitantly reached out his hand to gingerly stroke the creature.

"A shelter. She was a stray before somebody turned her in to them." as she spoke, she adjusted the cat in her arms as the ball of fluff began to slip from her arms, "I got her for you."

"What— why in the blazes would you go and do that?" Shad gawked at her, incredulous, "I haven't the slightest clue how to take care of a cat!"

"Yes, I am aware of that," she tried to assure him with a smile, "Which is why they gave me a pamphlet with all the basics of cat ownership that you can read."

Shad heaved a beleaguered sigh and pressed his hand against his forehead, looking down. "Mother, dear, that's not really the true issue at hand, I— I do not think I can _handle_ taking care of a pet right now."

When he looked up, Shad was taken aback by the new redness in his mother's eyes as she looked at him with nothing but concern, fighting back tears. "Please, Shad, just give her a try. You living alone with all that has happened worries me."

That was right. Although he had been staying with his mother for the past few weeks after his father had passed, he did really live all by himself in a cramped apartment and it was almost time for him to return. Even without him there, his mother still had a _darling_ (vicious) Pomeranian that she had to take care of, so even she wasn't alone either.

Shad, on the other hand, had literally _nobody._ He supposed that was good cause for concern. If it would ease his mother's troubled mind, taking in a cat wouldn't be _so_ terrible.

He sighed again. "What's her name?"

The soft smile returned to his mother's face. "Snowball."

A fluffy white cat named Snowball. How creative.

* * *

The train ride home was a surreal one. Shad lived within a reasonable distance from his mother. Close enough to pay visits when he needed to, but far enough that she didn't drive him mad with, well, the usual motherly stuff. It was a twenty minute ride at most, yet it felt much longer.

For starters, Snowball wouldn't stop crying within her cage. Though he couldn't exactly blame her— if he was a cat, he would probably have some complaints himself— but she was _loud._ His eyes stayed fixed on either her or his lap the entire time, but he could _feel_ people's stares. Several times he tried to calm her down by either shushing her or sticking a couple fingers in the gaps of the bars to poke at her, but it was futile. He heard a few giggles and, even though he had no proof of it, he knew they were directed at him.

They didn't sound malicious or teasing, but Shad disliked the attention nonetheless.

His mother had given him about two weeks worth of wet cat food and a collar, both of which was given to her by the shelter (before he left, he needed some serious assistance to get the collar on her). His mother had went out and bought a litterbox for him, but he would need to get the litter on his own. After he ran out of food, he would have to buy it himself. That wasn't necessarily a problem, though. While he wasn't too keen on the idea of taking care of her, he wasn't going to starve her or anything.

Actually, Shad quite liked cats. He just never had the pleasure of owning one, and since his father's passing, he felt like he could barely take care of himself let alone another living creature.

When he arrived back into his apartment, barely being able to carry everything up the flight of steps, the first thing he did was set up her litterbox in his bathroom. The next thing he tried to do was bathe her, in hopes that she would look a _little_ nicer without dirty white fur.

It was a complete disaster. He (barely) got the job done, but it was a disaster. In retrospect, he should have saw that coming.

Shad decided to wait until he coerced the cat into the bathroom and quickly shut the door. As soon as he turned the knob to the water, the cat immediately began wailing and clawing at the bottom of the door in an fruitless attempt to escape. Shad tried to grab her, but before his hands could even touch Snowball, she hissed and swiped her claws against his arm, leaving four bloody streaks in their path.

When he did eventually get her into the tub, she emitted a terrible sound the entire time that he could only describe as demented police sirens.

At least with clean fur, she did look significantly better.

"See?" he laughed dryly as he held a growling, trembling creature in a towel, "You're... _sort of_ adorable with white fur."

Apparently his mother had very low standards of what she considered to be cute.

* * *

The night came and the memory of the rather weird day was only a blur in his mind. He hadn't felt so exhausted in a while and, honestly, he hadn't been sleeping very well in general.

As soon as he turned off the lights and crawled into his bed, Snowball began crying.

Groaning, Shad got up and turned back on his bedroom light. Snowball had ceased her meowing and merely stared at him with slowly blinking eyes. He tried to invite her onto the bed with him, but she still sat beside his vanity, staring at him, unmoving.

He sighed and clicked the light back off. Sure enough, the cat began to meow again.

At that point, Shad decided it was better to ignore it. He pulled his bedcover over his head, buried his face into his pillow. Eventually, the meowing began to either die down, or his mind blocked it out, and he was able to fall asleep.

Until about 1:35 a.m., he heard scratching at his front door. The cat wanted out. He tried to ignore it for all about five minutes before he was annoyed to the point of giving up and got up to let her out.

At 2:10 a.m., Snowball wanted back in. She continued her awful wailing, but he was too tired to really care. Fortunately, the walls of the apartment managed to block her out just enough that he was able to fall back asleep.

* * *

When Shad woke up, Snowball was nowhere in sight, and for a minute, he was worried. That is, he was worried until he remembered that he let her outside during the unholy hours of the night and never decided to let her back in.

His worry was immediately replaced with a sharp guilt that stabbed him through his gut. His mother had given him the cat to be his companion, so that he wouldn't be entirely alone, so that he could better cope. It was only the second (or rather, first and not even half) day he had her and he had already failed his obligation to take care of her.

Fortunately, Castle Town was a relatively safe place where people's cats and dogs alike roamed the streets. He figured she would show up again eventually.

And when she did, he would remember to _try_ and take proper care of her.

That resolve was sharpened when he peeked outside and there was a notice from the apartment landlord hanging on his doorknob telling him to keep his cat in line. Apparently his door wasn't the only one was she was scratching that night.

Later that day, a young man found himself at Shad's door— Snowball curled up and purring in his arms, followed by another cat, presumably his.

"Hey, uh," he awkwardly tried to greet him as he held up the cat, "Is, is she yours? This is the right address on the collar, right?"

The boy was about Shad's age from the looks of him. He had dirty blond hair, eyes that were a deep azure color, and wore clothes that made Shad think of a forest.

"Yes, she is mine," he sighed, sounding rather ashamed of himself, "Thank you very much."

Shad started to reach out his arms to take the cat from the stranger, but instead he let himself in to his apartment, his own cat following behind him, much to Shad's surprise and offense.

But, he _did_ bring Snowball back to him, so he shouldn't complain too much.

The boy gently set Snowball down on the carpeted floor. Immediately, she scampered off to an unknown room, probably the bathroom to get to her litterbox if Shad had to take a guess.

"I found her in my apartment," he said with a slight lilt of laughter in his voice, "My window was open, she must've climbed in then."

"Oh dear," Shad replies in a voice dull with hopelessness, "I hope she was not too much of a bother."

"Nah, she wasn't really bothering _me_ ," he motioned down to his cat, "Colin was the one suffering."

"Colin?" Certainly a better name than _Snowball_ , but not one Shad would think suitable for a cat.

"Yep," he said with a smile, "Named him after one of the kids from my hometown."

"Ah— so then you are not from around here?" Shad asked. He hadn't seen the boy around, but in a place as crowded as Castle Town, that didn't really mean anything.

"Nope, I'm from Ordon. I'm only living here for a while." With some sort of strange cheer to him, he extended a hand out to Shad, "Name's Link, nice to meet ya."

Oh, yes. Ordon. Shad had heard of the place. It was a small town on the countryside. In fact, it was _so_ country, that it was shocking that any of it's residents would ever consider living in the city, even if it was temporary. Or, maybe, Shad was just being snooty.

"Shad. Likewise, old boy." he connected his hand with Link's, but his grip was weak and shy that it probably became the most awkward handshake known to man.

Link had decided to plop himself down on Shad's sofa, Colin jumping up to lay next to him. That action was completely shocking to Shad. Why, if he were to ever let himself in to someone else's abode and make himself comfortable like that without any invitation— his poor mother would have probably had a heart attack right then and there.

The people in Ordon must have been some really _friendly_ folk. It was hard to get upset with him if that was how people were raised in the country. That, and Link didn't seem like any threat to him. Actually he was...nice.

It had been a while since he had such a friendly conversation with someone.

Link ended up staying until the sun sank into the night. They talked about different things, such as their hobbies. Shad talked about his favorite books whereas Link discussed his favorite TV shows.

Eventually, the conversation took a deeper turn when he was asked how he got Snowball, as really the only reason his mother gave her to him was his father's passing. For the first time all day, the smile on Link's face had disappeared and had been replaced with his lips pressed in a fine line, nothing but concern gleaming in his eyes.

He managed to change the subject soon after, though, which Shad was silently grateful for.

* * *

Shad expected that night to be the last time Link walked through his door. While their conversation that day had been pleasant, he didn't expect the boy to be interested in him enough to actually want to be more than friendly acquaintances.

Well, Link showed up the next day.

Once again, with Colin, letting himself in without Shad even inviting him to do so. Not that he would have told him to leave. Actually, Shad didn't mind this time around at all.

As they talked for hours again, Shad couldn't help but notice that Colin and Snowball seemed to be quite fond of each other, if fondness between cats meant chasing each other around his apartment, nearly knocking over his bookshelf, and rolling around on his carpet while they gently nipped at each other.

Perhaps it did.


End file.
